Łucja Staszkiewicz

Warszawskie Obserwatorium Kultury ogłasza nabór do udziału w programie mentoringowym w ramach projektu Pracow(a)nie artystyczne, czyli jak można pracować twórczo w Warszawie. Czekamy na Twoje zgłoszenie do 5 maja 10:00!

Every year, over 200 people graduate from art schools in Warsaw. To continue their artistic practice, they need a place to work, however, access to spaces and tools that would enable creative work is limited. New spaces to create art are becoming increasingly rare in Warsaw. That is why we at the Warsaw Observatory of Culture (WOK) are looking for solutions and new ways of thinking about the role of art studios–and artistic work–in the urban environment. In collaboration with the Puszka Foundation, we are running research and mentoring activities aimed at developing new ways of thinking about artists' studios and models of creative work, bringing together stakeholders and providing young artists with the knowledge they need to practice their art without restraints in Warsaw.

The publication which sums up the project Artistic, Collective, Metropolitan. Warsaw art studios as micro-institutions address the issue of creative work, its regulatory frameworks and constraints through viaf the functioning of art studios. Focusing on city-owned properties, studios rented on the commercial market, the creative space available at the Academy of Fine Arts, and studios run by creative cooperatives, we explore the different ways in which creative work can be organised, which usually depends on the availability of dedicated space.

This is the moment that the Polish performing arts community has been waiting for. The competition for the year-long curatorial concept for the Pavilion for Dance and Other Performing Arts has been launched. The competition is organised by the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. Entries are open and will be accepted via the pawilontanca.pl website.

On 18 March 2024, a meeting of representatives of the Warsaw dance community with Catja Loepfe, the artistic director of Tanzhaus Zürich (TZ), took place at WOK.Lab. The guest spoke about the establishment of the Swiss dance institution in the 1990s, its new premises and current activities within the broader framework of performance arts in the city.

The symposium focused on the city of Warsaw’s policy towards art studios. The discussion was attended by representatives of grassroots self-organised exhibition spaces operating in premises intended for art studios i.e. the Przyszła Niedoszła gallery and Pracownia Wschodnia. The discussion aimed to raise questions about the reasons why the operation of independent exhibition spaces is hindered and to find possible ways of solving the problem.

The point of reference for this part of the project is Jan Hoet’s 1986 project Chambres d’Amis, which consisted of taking art out of institutions and placing it closer to people and real life, in private homes in Ghent.

As part of the “Artistic, Collective, Metropolitan” project, we collaborated with the Department of Artistic Research and Curatorial Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Through interviews with artists and the staff of Property Management Divisions of the individual city districts, we gathered information on the actual and statutory functions of art studios. We intestigated the location of the studios in the urban space, their accessibility, and the conditions required to gain access to art studios. The result of the research is an exhibition that will be arranged and presented in the WOK Lab space.

26 lutego 2024 roku Warszawskie Obserwatorium Kultury zorganizowało spotkanie przedstawicielek środowiska tanecznego ze Slavą Gepnerem, dyrektorem zarządzającym i artystycznym oraz pomysłodawcą TanzFaktur w Kolonii. Spotkanie miało na celu poznanie historii tej instytucji oraz zdobycie wiedzy o tym, jak budować nowe miejsce dla tańca, czego w tym procesie unikać oraz jak współpracować ze środowiskiem niezależnych tancerzy i choreografów. Spotkanie moderowała Joanna Leśnierowska.

A meeting of the dance community with Maciej Siuda, architect and author of the Vistula Pavilion's functional and utility plan (PFU), was held at the WOK Lab space at ul. Marszałkowska 34/50 on 12 February. The plan’s development was preceded by workshops at the MSN (Museum of Contemporary Art) premises and study visits to the Pavillon ADC and Uferstudios and Radialsystem in Berlin).

Na zlecenie Warszawskiego Obserwatorium Kultury IPSOS przeprowadził badania na temat nowej instytucji – sceny tańca współczesnego. Raport dostarcza informacji na temat potrzeb środowiska i oczekiwań publiczności, a także zawiera rekomendacje dotyczące założeń programu pilotażowego nowej sceny tańca. Jest to część prowadzonego przez WOK wieloetapowego procesu wspierającego powstawanie tej placówki.

The Warsaw Observatory of Culture is researching the local artistic community and its needs by observing the municipal infrastructure of art studios. The aim of the project is to increase the visibility of art studios and empower artists by highlighting the importance of these premises to the functioning of the city’s cultural scene.

Since September 2023, Warsaw Observatory of Culture has been supporting a process of establishing Warsaw’s Pavilion of Dance. So far we were bringing together the Warsaw’s dance community, Bureau of Culture, and Museum of Modern Art to work out the terms of the open call for the pilot programming at the Pavilion and to discuss the needs for accommodating the building of Pavilion on the Vistula to the needs of dance communit. We were also fueling the dance community with knowledge during the workshops we organized.